People are being put at risk because there is no way of telling from internet searches if their doctor has broken the rules or is working under sanctions from medical regulators, experts warn.

More than 680,000 health practitioners, including doctors, nurses, and dentists, have their registration status published by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), including information about whether special conditions have been placed on their practice because of past bad behaviour.

Patients are being left in the dark about their doctor's bad behaviour. Photo: Virginia Star

But lawyers and patient advocates say patients are being left in the dark because the results do not show up in search results. One barrister told Fairfax Media she had clients who had been harmed by a doctor they had researched online, only discovering when they sought legal advice the doctor had conditions placed on them.

It appears the registration information - including warnings of serious issues such as poor hygiene practices, incorrect diagnosis, an inappropriate procedure choice - is simply not listed in a way that is easily searchable, despite government websites being given priority in results.

Consumers Health Forum spokesman Mark Metherell said it was not good enough.

"AHPRA should be far more proactive in ensuring this sort of information is easily accessible," he said. "What's more unfair, for patients to go to the doctor with conditions they are not being made aware of, and maybe even being in some way harmed, or the reputation of the doctor being harmed?"

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Last week, Fairfax Media revealed more than 1000 patients of a Sydney dentist, Nuha Kamil, may have been exposed to diseases such as HIV through poor infection control. A Google search did not reveal AHPRA conditions stating she was now only allowed to practise under the supervision of someone with infection control training.

Barrister Ngaire Watson said the average member of the public would have "no idea about AHPRA'', and would not know to check its website. "How would you know if you have got a dangerous doctor,'' she asked.

Jim Stewart, the chief executive of search marketing company Stew Art Media, said the site could be redesigned to make the conditions show up, by removing duplication between pages and using normal language such as "doctor" instead of jargon like "health practitioner".

But a spokeswoman for AHPRA said the easiest way for people to find out about their doctors was to go to their website.

"The register is unique in that it is the first time anyone can access this kind of information online and centrally for all of the registered professions,'' she said.